The improvement of students' learning speed and quality is essential to English teaching

which is able to make English teaching more effective. In order to help students make great progress in learning speed and quality

English teachers are supposed to understand the relevant theories of educational psychology and apply them to real teaching practice. There is a close connection among the various knowledge points of English. The learning of new knowledge depends on students' mastery of old knowledge

and the process of learning new knowledge is the process of transfer learning. The application of transfer learning theory to English learning can help students understand the connection between old and new knowledge

making it easy for them to be more effective to acquire new knowledge as well as they can work more on deep learning. On the basis of explaining the theory of transfer learning

this paper uses the literature research method to retrieve relevant academic sources on CNKI

collect and analyze data and literature on the application of transfer learning theory to English teaching since 2010. In the following part

the paper summarizes the main contents on the application of the transfer learning theory in English learning and teaching from three aspects: positive and negative transfer of mother tongue

factors affecting English learning transfer and the application of strategies of transfer learning theory in English classrooms. At the end of the paper

several suggestions will be given on the problems existing in the research and how to be more effective in English teaching based on the transfer learning theory.